Platonic vs Socratic Methods (was “. . . . Physicists Seek To Lose The Lecture As Teaching Tool” )

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent discussion-list post
“Platonic vs Socratic Methods (was ‘. . . . Physicists Seek To Lose The Lecture As Teaching Tool’ )” [Hake (2012)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: Joe Redish, in a PhysLrnR post wrote (paraphrasing): “. . . I tell my TA’s not to do Socratic dialogs, guiding the students through the answers as in the classic ‘Socratic dialog’ of Plato’s ‘Meno’. There Socrates shows a slave that he knows everything he needs to prove the Pythagorean theorem.”

But Joe’s so-called “classic ‘Socratic dialog’ ” of Plato’s Meno is actually “Platonic dialogue,” not the “Socratic Dialogue” of the “historical Socrates” as:
(1) researched by the late classics scholar Gregory Vlastos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Vlastos;
(2) practiced by the late Arnold Arons, myself, and possibly a few others;
(3) exhaustively explained in a post “The Socratic Method of the Historical Socrates, Plato’s Socrates, and the Law School Socrates” [Hake (2007)].

IMHO, Joe would have done better to have written: “. . . I tell my TA’s not to do Platonic dialogs, guiding the students through the answers.” For almost two decades, ever since Robert Morse (1994) published “The Classic Method of Mrs. Socrates”. . . [Morse should have titled it “The Classic Method of Mrs. Plato”)]. . . Joe Redish has persisted in giving Socratic Dialogue a bad name by confusing it with Platonic Dialogue.

This pedagogical misconception is probably a factor in the nearly complete neglect of effective Socratic pedagogy by Physics Education Researchers.
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To access the complete 17 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/y4l2Eh.

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands
President, PEdants for Definitive Academic References which Recognize the Invention of the Internet (PEDARRII)

rrhake@earthlink.net
http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake
http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi
http://HakesEdStuff.blogspot.com
http://iub.academia.edu/RichardHake

“If Confucius can serve as the Patron Saint of Chinese education, let me propose Socrates as his equivalent in a Western educational context - a Socrates who is never content with the initial superficial response, but is always probing for finer distinctions, clearer examples, a more profound form of knowing. Our concept of knowledge has changed since classical times, but Socrates has provided us with a timeless educational goal - ever deeper understanding.”
-- Howard Gardner (1989)

REFERENCES [All URL's shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 10 Jan 2012.]
Gardner, H. 1989. “The Academic Community Must Not Shun the Debate Over How to Set National Educational Goals,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 8 November.

Hake, R.R. 2011. “Platonic vs Socratic Methods (was ‘. . . . Physicists Seek To Lose The Lecture As Teaching Tool’ )” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/y4l2Eh. Post of 10 Jan 2012 10:59:16-0800 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists.

Morse, R.A. 1994. “The Classic Method of Mrs. Socrates,” Phys. Teach. 32(5): 276-277; online as a 287 kB pdf at http://bit.ly/iT1ksI, thanks to the University of Colorado PER group.

Is Scientifically-based Education an Oxymoron?

Some blog followers may be interested in a recent post of the above title [Hake (2009)]

The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: Jerry Bracey in his book Education Hell: Rhetoric vs. Reality listed what he regarded as 10 lessons from the “Eight-Year Study” of 1942, in which more than 30 high schools in the 1930s were encouraged to try non-traditional approaches to teaching. Washington Post education columnist Jay Mathews then (a) repeated Bracey's 10 lessons along with comments by Bracey and by himself, and (b) bravely invited his readers to kick sand in the faces of Bracey and himself by letting him know which of the Bracey/Mathews comments were most inane.” Taking Mathews at his word, in my view the most inane Bracey/Mathews comments center around Bracey's Lesson #8 that SCIENTIFICALLY BASED EDUCATION IS AN OXYMORON. If this lesson is correct then it would appear that the following authors all have their heads buried in the sand: David Hestenes (1979), Edward (Joe) Redish (1999), Richard Shavelson & Lisa Towne (2002) and members of the National Academy's "Committee on Scientific Principles for education research," Paula Heron & David Meltzer (2005), Carl Wieman (2007), and Richard Hake (2007).

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To access the complete 24 kB post, please click on http://tinyurl.com/n9cyjy .

REFERENCES

Hake, R.R. 2009. “Is Scientifically-based Education an Oxymoron?” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://tinyurl.com/n9cyjy . Post of 7 Jul 2009 17:03:51-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract only was transmitted to various discussion lists.